PFP2342. The End of ESG Investing: A View from Outcomes and Evaluation

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies have experienced a massive inflow of capital despite a lack of evidence that ESG investing accomplishes its purported goals and without investors having information, tools and methods to evaluate and communicate their ESG objectives. Without these tools, it is impossible for investors with ESG intent to know if they are getting what they are paying for, to distinguish between investment managers based on non-financial objectives or to improve the likelihood of achieving positive ESG investing outcomes. This session highlights key challenges faced by ESG investors and portfolio managers implementing ESG investment mandates, provides guidance on the information required to make informed ESG investing decisions and proposes a performance evaluation and attribution framework to support the ESG investment management process.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the importance and challenges of defining non-financial investment objectives for a portfolio with an ESG investment mandate
• Articulate the relationship between ESG performance evaluation and ESG investment objectives
• Evaluate portfolio performance (including non-financial portfolio impact) for a portfolio with an ESG investment mandate